Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that reports that the Prime Minister is in favour of some cuts in incapacity benefit have caused deep concern among disabled people? The Government should be in no doubt whatever that cuts of any kind will be fiercely resisted in the Houses of Parliament, by disabled people and by the Disability Rights Commission. Is my noble friend further aware that I favour a reform of incapacity benefit? However, it should not be done by cuts, time limits, means tests or vouchers instead of money. Such a move would be absolute nonsense, and all the other suggestions now being put forward by various people via leaks to the papers are very damaging to the whole concept of reform. The best way to reform the benefit is to build on Pathways to Work. That is a splendid project, but it covers only one-third of the country. We now want a national roll-out as soon as possible. Once we have that, we will have constructive reform, which will help disabled people and employers as well.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to pay tribute to my noble friends Lords Morris and Lord Ashley for their work in supporting the DRC. We frequently talk to the DRC. It has made constructive proposals for welfare reform in general. I assure my noble friend Lord Morris that we will want to talk very closely with the commission once the Green Paper is produced.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: My Lords, I shall certainly look into the question of whether it will need primary legislation. As far as the Government developments are concerned—the Olympic village and the Thames Gateway—I think that we should consider as part of the investigation using these huge developments in a way that would help the advancement of the commonhold idea.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, no one has ever suggested that nuclear power being renewable means that nuclear power stations go on indefinitely. The question with all energy sources is whether, because they are or are not using a finite source of energy, they are renewable. The question often raised is: is nuclear power renewable, given that it makes use of uranium, which may have a limited amount of use. The answer I was giving was that other sources can be used and that, for the foreseeable future, they will supply us with all that we need.
	On when we will make a decision, as we have said on numerous occasions, our review will produce proposals by the middle of the year and we will then have the answers.

Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, there is a huge amount in the commissioner's speech with which everyone can agree, but will my noble friend confirm that the Government have no plans to absorb the British Transport Police into the metropolitan force? He will recall that on many occasions in this House the work of the BTP has been widely praised, particularly after the terrorist outrages. Does my noble friend agree that the case for keeping a separate police force responsible for the Underground and over-ground transport policing is still very strong?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I accept the invitation, in a sense, that the noble Lord makes. This is part of a continuing debate about the nature of modern policing, which is a very important debate. Sir Ian Blair has done the nation a great service in offering ideas and refreshed thinking on that subject. That debate needs to continue. It is certainly our desire in the Government to make sure that it is a vigorous debate because we need to engender further public support for our continuing reform process.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I recognise that the amendment is honourably intended to improve road safety—which is, of course, also one of the objectives of the Bill—but, as I said in Committee when we debated this issue, I do not think the amendment is required. I reiterate those arguments because they still hold.
	The safety camera programme is delivering positive results under the current rules on what this money should be used for and there is no reason to change the rules to determine what can be funded by such income. Local authorities and the police are already funded by other revenue streams to enable them to fund local transport facilities or related environmental improvements, including road safety measures—although I recognise, of course, that there will always be a demand from such sources for extra resources because there are always useful ideas that can be implemented.
	I should mention to the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, that we intend fully to fund bus passes through other sources—that is, through the £360 million already scheduled for them. So that money is already to be made available and ought not to come out of road safety provision. I am at one with both Front Bench spokesmen about these resources being directed towards road safety.
	I reiterate that the road safety programme is not there to raise revenue but has a distinct and different function—to strengthen the detection, enforcement and deterrence of speeding. My noble friend Lord Simon is quite right—we would welcome a decrease in resources and revenues from this base, as it would be an indication that law-abiding driving was taking place and fines were not being imposed.
	It has been suggested that these resources go elsewhere and that this is some form of stealth tax. I made it as clear as I could in Committee that the present legislation demonstrates that that is just not so. It provides that the programme can be applied only to the deployment of cameras. That means that the police and local authorities have no incentive to deploy cameras for any reason except road safety related to speeding.
	It is important to maintain public confidence that that is the objective of the cameras and that the resources generated by the cameras are directed solely to that end. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, said, in his usual persuasive way, that we ought to look at revenues in general. We will be undertaking a stock-take of the road safety camera programme so that we can learn from existing and past experience to develop the programme for the future. No decisions on this review have yet been taken, but I hear what the noble Lord says and we will take that into account when conducting the review.
	I hope that the noble Lord will recognise that the principle is very clear. The cameras are there not to raise revenue but merely to ensure that drivers abide by the law. It is important that we maintain confidence in that respect, which is why I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Hanningfield: My Lords, we debated at length in Committee on the implications of subsection (2)(e) and the unease surrounding a provision that gives the Secretary of State the power to make arrangements for other persons to have access to the electronic driving record. I am pleased to say that this concern was allayed by a government amendment to subsection (4). However, a number of important concerns remain with a project of this significance.
	First, is the substitution of the counterpart with an electronic driving record a truly practical measure? In Committee, the Minister was probed on the type of persons or organisations that would be granted access to this new driving record. A number of different suggestions were made regarding the type of employer that might require such information.
	To my knowledge, a vast number of employers, large and small, currently require prospective employees to hold a clean driving licence. This can be easily ascertained by the presentation of a person's driving licence for inspection, since the counterpart is a legal document.
	What will happen under the driving record system? Many businesses and organisations will still require employees to provide that they have a clean driving licence. In the light of the amendment recently moved by the Government, does the Minister propose that on each occasion the Secretary of State should place a draft instrument containing the name of such a business—say, for example, a small courier firm—before Parliament, to be approved for access to the driving record computer systems?
	That may seem like an absurd and ridiculous possibility, but the reality is that a large number of businesses require such information, and, since individuals will no longer be in possession of the legal documentation necessary to demonstrate themselves, these businesses will need access to the electronic driving record. A natural consequence will be a huge number of persons and organisations requiring access to the electronic driving record system, and this will present a number of serious logistical and security problems. Will the DVLA be responsible for the verification of the driving licences for employer inquiries, or will employers be granted access to the database? I am curious to know how the Government intend to address this system and eventuality.
	Secondly, can we trust the integrity of the driving record? Without a paper copy to prove that we do not have any driving endorsements, how can we dispute information contained electronically? In Committee, the Minister stated that the DVLA would write to an individual every time that person's driving record was amended, thereby allowing that person the opportunity to challenge the endorsement.
	Yet how would a person be able to do so in practice? At present, I imagine that it is decidedly unlikely that such a mistake could be made, because the licence available obviously has the endorsement on it. It can be presented to authorities, as we all know, if you have a conviction on a driving offence. Therefore, under the present system, it seems unlikely that a person will allow their licence to be endorsed without guilt of any offence.
	As I understand from the Minister's explanation in Committee, under the proposed electronic driving records system, a person may request a paper copy of his or her driving record. However, unlike the counterpart, that will not be considered a legal document and will, as a result, not constitute adequate proof. The seriousness of that possibility is amplified by the growing trend in electronic identity theft. Once we remove privately held legal documentation and choose to concentrate valuable personal information in a single electronic system with no tangible mechanism for verification, how can we but increase people's vulnerability to fraud, as there are mistakes and computer errors?
	Furthermore, judging by the Government's record on information technology—we all know how difficult some such systems are—is it wise to transfer all this important information on to such a system? The Government's latest foray into the world of budget information technology systems—the NHS project Connecting for Health—is not faring too well, running over-budget and over-time. Remember, this is a project that follows in the less-than-successful path of similarly expensive and ambitious IT projects created for the Passport Agency, air traffic control and the CSA. Will the Minister assure the House that the driving records project will not face a similar fate? I beg to move.

The Earl of Dundee: My Lords, this amendment would allow the police to undertake targeted breath testing for a maximum of 24 hours where an inspector believes that drinking and driving may be taking place. The same amendment was moved in Committee in June when the Minister said that he and the Government were reluctant to accept it. However, since then, two new pieces of information have become available. First, the figures published in Road Casualties Great Britain: 2004 indicate a continuing rise in drink-driving fatalities. In 2004, 590 people died in crashes involving illegal alcohol levels—a rise of 10 people over the previous year, and a level which is higher than that in 1996. The problem of drinking and driving remains a major road safety issue, especially as the number of road deaths fell by 8 per cent between 2003 and 2004. If the Government are not prepared to encourage target breath testing, what other policies and initiatives do they favour?
	The second piece of new information is the figures published earlier this year by the Home Office covering breath testing by individual police forces. There are significant variations between police forces in England and Wales in the number of tests carried out per hundred thousand head of population from 390 in Hertfordshire to 3,390 in Derbyshire. While it is wrong to take that figure as the sole criterion for judging a police force's commitment to reducing drinking and driving, nevertheless, the disparities in figures raise questions about how seriously each force takes action on this issue.
	The current legal position already allows discretion to the police officer to ask for a breath test on suspicion, although that applies only to an individual suspect rather than to a collection of people. This amendment would remove that ambiguity and enable police forces to do a better job where targeted breath testing can provide a useful deterrent. I beg to move.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am in danger of pouring cold water on so far a unanimous House. I admire the ingenuity of the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, in the way in which he has constructed his amendment. We had not seen anything like it—or similar to it—until he proposed it on 27 June in Committee. We recognise the skill that has gone into the construction of the amendment and its objectives, which seek to ensure that we make our roads safer by greater control over drinking and driving.
	As noble Lords will recognise, there is a wide range of approaches to breath-testing policy. This one gives additional and free-standing powers to the police to establish what might be called campaigns of testing for a limited time and in a limited locality. The safeguard for the law-abiding motorist is that these campaigns must be authorised by a reasonably senior officer, as the noble Earl indicated, and that someone who is required to be tested can request a written statement to explain the circumstances of the test. I see this as a helpful concept in taking public support with us on the question of breath testing. I say that because, despite the assertion of the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, she will recognise that the concept of random breath testing does not command universal assent.
	Nevertheless, while it was suggested by some that this proposal would not go far enough—although in the case of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, it would go just far enough—for the Government it is a step too far, given the current practice of the police in their enforcement procedures against drink-driving. The police are content with their existing powers in this area and we would not wish to widen them.
	Since we last discussed this proposal, we have available further drink driving statistics which show that while the number of road fatalities where alcohol is a factor have increased, at least the overall number of accidents has gone down from 12,400 in 2003 to 11,220 provisionally for 2004. I am also pleased to report to the House that since the publication of the joint Home Office, Department for Transport and ACPO Roads Policing Strategy, two well-attended conferences have been held on roads policing. The first was held by ACPO in October and the second by the Police Federation just last week. That shows that the police are taking this issue very seriously.
	Our short debate today indicates how clearly noble Lords recognise that this is a problem which needs to be tackled. However, I repeat that, first, the police are content with their existing powers; secondly, we discuss regularly how the police enforce the existing law; and, thirdly, we have seen an improvement in one set of statistics. I am not at all complacent about the situation and we all know of the problems in this area. I hope that the noble Earl will accept that his amendment would not add to police efficiency, while at the same time acknowledging that we share his concern about this issue. I hope that he will withdraw his amendment.

Lord Berkeley: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, is correct that it should be applied to all vehicles, but I get the impression that in this case perfection may be the enemy of the good, and it would be better to start with the amendment. This is a no-brainer. Of course the Freight Transport Association and the Road Haulage Association will oppose it. They would, wouldn't they? In the same way, the road safety organisations will support it. We need to think about the effect and the cost.
	How long are we going to wait and how many more people are going to be killed in the way illustrated by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, before we get on and do this? Apparently, the powers exist. Let us get on and do it. I cannot understand how we can oppose this in a European forum? I hope that the Minister has brought the good news that we are going to go ahead tomorrow.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am glad that noble Lords expect me to be the harbinger of good news. I am always a harbinger of good news because I bring the Government's view on these complex issues. I begin by apologising for the absence of the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, who replied to this debate on the previous occasion. She is unfortunately ill with food poisoning, so noble Lords will have to put up with my answer today.
	As we indicated then, this amendment is unnecessary because powers to regulate the use of the material in question already exist. The issue with which we are faced is that Europe is concerned to provide a whole series of regulations for all types of heavy goods vehicles. Compliance with these regulations will become mandatory in the UK through the forthcoming introduction of a European system of,
	"whole vehicle type approval for new goods vehicles and their trailers".
	This approval system, which will provide a regulatory framework against which vehicles can be assessed, is being developed by the European Commission and member states.
	As I have indicated, UK regulations already permit the use of ECE 104 tape. If we began work now to change UK regulations to mandate the tape, there would be only short period before the introduction of the amended regulations and that of the European approval system. We do not consider the cost and time that would be needed to make these changes separately to be justified, given the small benefit which would be achieved by a slightly earlier introduction. I am not underestimating the importance of the concept for road safety, but we are talking about a very limited period between our capacity to introduce the limited powers that we have and the whole vehicle position which the European Union is developing.
	The introduction date for that has still to be agreed, but it will be mandatory for all new goods vehicles and their trailers. Therefore, the House will recognise that we do not see that we would derive benefit from acting on powers which already exist in legislation.
	But in any case the amendment is unnecessary, because we enjoy those powers at present. I hope that the noble Lord will recognise the strength of that argument.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the answer is, "not just yet". But let me just make the obvious point—nor would any regulations that we proposed within our own powers. All that I am indicating is that the gap is marginal between achieving what we could create, operating unilaterally, and complying as we shall be obliged to with the European requirements. That is the reason why I am resisting the amendment.

On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 14) shall be agreed to?
	Their Lordships divided: Contents, 163; Not-Contents, 146

Lord Warner: My Lords, I would like to repeat a Statement made in the other place. The Statement is as follows:
	"With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement about seasonal flu vaccine. Five years ago, we decided to give higher priority to protecting the health of the public from winter flu. We introduced the annual seasonal flu vaccination programme targeted at those of increased risk from seasonal flu—that is, those aged 65 and over, and those below that age in certain clinical risk groups, as identified by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. This is an annual programme because, of course, each year new strains of influenza vaccine can emerge and therefore the flu vaccines need to be reformulated accordingly. In this way, each year the vaccine provides the best protection against the influenza virus circulating.
	"Since the programme was introduced in the winter of 2000–01, vaccination uptake in people aged 65 and over has increased year on year. In the first year of the targeted programme, just over 65 per cent of those aged 65 years and over were vaccinated. Last year, 71.5 per cent of those aged 65 years and over received the seasonal flu vaccine—some 5.2 million people. In addition 1.2 million people in the clinical risk groups were vaccinated.
	"The responsibility for ordering seasonal flu vaccine and the administration of the vaccine has always fallen to general practitioners—this is a GP-led programme. General practitioners order their own supply of vaccine, based on the number of eligible patients on their register. They make contractual arrangements with any of the six manufacturers who supply flu vaccine to the UK.
	"In addition to the GP orders, the Department of Health purchases a stock of flu vaccine each year as part of our contingency planning measures. This is held for emergency use should GPs run into difficulties with vaccine supply.
	"The department routinely meets with representatives from the UK Vaccine Industry Group (UVIG) towards the beginning of each year to inform the industry group how much seasonal flu vaccine will be required in the UK. This is based on the numbers of people covered by the current Department of Health policy.
	"This year the estimated production total from all UK vaccine manufacturers was over 14 million doses, which is more than ever before. This is sufficient to immunise 100 per cent of those in our targeted groups; in other words, the elderly, and the young in clinical risk groups, as described in the Chief Medical Officer's letter to the service in July.
	"We began to hear anecdotal evidence in late October that some GPs may be facing a shortage of flu vaccine. In order to assess the potential problem, officials wrote on 3 November to all primary care trust flu immunisation co-ordinators. This letter provided a reminder of the priority groups for flu vaccination, and how additional stocks of vaccine could be ordered from the Department of Health contingency stock, should extra be required by practices in their area.
	"The current problems may be due to a combination of factors, such as the under-ordering of vaccine on the one hand, and possibly vaccination of 'worried well' on the other hand. It seems likely that awareness may also be higher this year due in part to the very high level of media interest in the threat of avian flu in birds and of pandemic flu. We do not expect seasonal flu vaccine to protect against avian influenza or against pandemic influenza. However, it is important to remember that seasonal flu vaccine is important for those aged 65 years and over, and the clinical risk groups, and high uptake level in these groups is to be welcomed.
	"We need to ensure now that GPs prioritise their remaining stocks of flu vaccine to those who will really benefit from the vaccine—those aged 65 years and over, and the clinical risk groups. Officials wrote to influenza immunisation co-ordinators to this effect yesterday.
	"The department is helping GPs by releasing flu vaccine from the contingency stock that we have purchased. We have taken orders against this stock, and deliveries are being made and will continue into December. In the face of exceptionally high global demand for flu vaccine, the department has been able to secure an additional 200,000 doses of flu vaccine, despite the intense global demand for vaccine—that will delivered in January. We are also discussing with manufacturers whether additional supplies can be made available over and above the 200,000 doses and, if so, when these stocks would be available.
	"In previous years, the GP-led arrangement that I have described has, on the whole, worked well. In view of what has happened this year, however, I am reviewing the arrangements currently in place for the seasonal flu vaccination programme and will consider this matter urgently".
	My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I come to an important part of the Bill which concerns speed limits and sentencing policy. The Home Office has, of course, a direct interest in this part of the Bill, and I was therefore looking with unsurpassed joy to the fact that my noble friend Lord Bassam of Brighton would be moving this amendment, while I would be able to give him the fullest moral support from the Bench. Regrettably, it falls to me to fulfil a rather more significant role on Amendment No. 19, and I take great pleasure in moving it.
	The amendment is the first in a series that takes forward some long-awaited measures arising from the review of road traffic offences involving bad driving, a consultation exercise which ran from February to May this year. Of all the issues that we have been concerned about in the Bill, this is probably the one which has exercised the minds of noble Lords most energetically as being of absolutely central significance to the Bill.
	The Government believe that it is vital to ensure that criminal law is fully effective in addressing bad driving and its all-too-often appalling consequences. These amendments will ensure that the offences and penalties available in cases of bad driving are sufficient in order to take into account the consequences of bad driving, as well as the offender's culpability. I would be extraordinarily na-ve if I did not recognise that this was a difficult and contentious issue. The Government are firmly of the opinion, however, that we need to address this issue, and particularly the effects of bad driving, in the Bill.
	Amendment No. 19 creates a new offence of causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving. It sets out the penalties for the offence and to which offences this would be available as an alternative verdict.
	Amendment No. 29, which I will turn to in a moment, sets out in statute what is meant by careless or inconsiderate driving.
	The offence of causing death by careless driving was originally proposed in the 1999 House of Commons Transport Committee's report on Traffic Law and its Enforcement. At present, causing death by dangerous driving is rightly considered a serious crime, and the Government have already increased the maximum penalty for causing death by dangerous driving, or causing death by careless driving while under the influences of alcohol or drugs, to 14 years' imprisonment. However, many people have argued that where the standard of driving is not categorised as dangerous, by that I mean that it is careless, and a death results, the law is inadequate.
	What is the difference between "careless" and "dangerous" driving? It might be helpful if I turn to government Amendment No. 29, as it sets out what is meant by careless driving. Careless driving is currently defined in Section 3 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, which I shall from now on refer to as the RTA, as driving a mechanically propelled vehicle on a road or another public place without due care and attention, or without reasonable consideration for other users of the road or place. However, unlike the concept of dangerous driving, which is further defined in the statute as driving that falls "far below" the standard expected of a competent and careful driver, careless driving is not further defined. It is widely regarded, and there is case law to the effect, that careless driving is driving that falls "below" the standard expected of a competent and careful driver, but, for completeness and clarity, the consultation proposed that this needs to be set out in statute. That is done in subsections (2) and (3) of the Section 3ZA offence.
	Furthermore, subsection (4) of the amendment defines inconsiderate driving as being driving that inconveniences another person. Government Amendment No. 29 does not alter in any way the definition of careless driving that has been established in case law, or indeed the definition of inconsiderate driving, it merely sets out those definitions in statute.
	Amendment No. 29A would change that definition so that careless driving would only cover driving that falls substantially below that expected of a competent and careful driver.
	As I have set out, where driving falls far below the expected standard, the offence of dangerous driving would be the appropriate charge.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I apologise to the Deputy Speaker and to the noble and learned Lord. He will have his chance to speak, I have no doubt. I was saying that where driving falls far below the expected standard, the offence of dangerous driving would be the appropriate charge. It is not clear how driving which falls substantially below what would be expected of the careful and competent driver would be distinguishable from driving which falls far below. In that sense, the noble Lord's amendment makes causing death by careless driving virtually identical to causing death by dangerous driving, thus doubling up what is already on the statute book.
	I do, however, recognise the sentiment behind the noble Lord's amendment. He is no doubt concerned that minor errors could be covered by the existing definition of careless driving and therefore covered by the new offence contained in Amendment No. 19. It is of course true that minor errors can be careless and therefore would be covered by this offence. However, it is worth bearing in mind that bad driving is a question of degree. Careless driving ranges from minor errors to driving that is on the cusp of being dangerous. It is the latter that would be likely to attract a custodial sentence where a death is caused. I shall return to the sentence for the offence in a moment.
	The issue of what driving behaviour should be covered by the offence of careless driving was considered prior to the consultation paper being published. When conducting the review of road traffic offences, the Government considered whether there should be an intermediate offence to cover the more serious types of careless driving, but the review process concluded that that would have been difficult to define and unnecessarily complex. Instead, we decided that it was better to rely on the judgment of the courts in view of the circumstances in each case. The meaning of careless driving is well established and there is no evidence that it is insufficient. Indeed, many respondents to the consultation felt that established case law definitions should be set out in statute, and that is what we have done. For those reasons, we will resist Amendment No. 29A.
	So careless driving is driving that falls below, but not far below, the standard of a competent and careful driver. Turning again to government Amendment No. 19, at present, careless driving is punishable by a maximum fine of £2,500. Elsewhere in the Bill, that will be raised to £5,000 and may also be subject to community penalties. At present, a custodial sentence is not available, regardless of the consequences of that offence. That is because careless driving can apply to quite minor errors, although sometimes it may approach dangerous driving. There is no requirement that there be an obvious risk of injury or damage.
	Some people argue that the consequences of the driving should not be an element of the offence—that only the standard of the driving should be assessed, not the possible tragic results. To some extent, I accept that. It is certainly true that the standard of driving must be the most important factor in judging culpability. However, the Government are committed to ensuring that we strike a balance between the level of criminal fault on the part of the careless driver and the devastation that can be caused. Drivers have a responsibility to other road users and we need to consider that when we strike that balance. That is why the consultation paper on bad driving offences proposed a new offence of causing death by careless driving with a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment.
	There were strongly held views both for and against the principle of that offence and I expect that those views will be aired during our debate. The proposal was strongly supported by the general public and by road safety organisations. However, it will be known that, on the whole, the legal profession was not in favour. We have of course considered that carefully, but have concluded that the offence is necessary. It will, for the first time, allow the fatal consequences of careless driving to be reflected in the charge, even when no alcohol or drugs are involved, and will make available a custodial sentence. It will reflect the fact that a proportion of cases will be on the borderline between careless and dangerous driving. Most importantly, it will mean that the families of those killed by careless drivers feel that the law is adequate to deal with the circumstances and that the justice system is on their side so that, if, in all circumstances, a court feels that custody is appropriate, it will be available.
	Of course, there will be instances—probably the majority—where custody is not considered to be the most appropriate penalty. The amendment merely ensures that custody is an option for the courts and allows the fact that the death to be recognised in the offence. That itself is an important acknowledgement of the tragedy that has happened to the families of victims of road accidents. Amendment No. 19C would reduce the maximum penalty available for the offence to three years imprisonment. As I said, the Government, have considered the principle of the offence carefully. We have also considered whether five years is the appropriate maximum penalty for such an offence. Most respondents to the consultation thought that it was. They thought that that penalty balances the offender's culpability, on the one hand, with the need to ensure that the offences and penalties available in cases of bad driving are sufficient to take account of the consequences. As I said, five years will be the maximum penalty available and will be used only where the courts were satisfied that it was necessary.
	In response to concerns raised by the Justices Clerks' Society, the Law Society and the Faculty of Advocates in their consultation responses, the Government have decided that the offence should be triable either way. That will help to reassure those who are concerned about the offence that cases that remain suitable for trial in the magistrates' court will continue to be heard there. Where they are, 12 months will be the maximum available penalty in England and Wales; six months in Scotland. The offence is not designed to ensure that anyone committing it receives the five-year maximum penalty. The Government recognise that drivers do not generally set out to be careless and are often devastated to think that they have killed someone through their bad driving. The offence is designed to untie the court's hands, so that if the court thinks that a custodial penalty is warranted, it can impose one.
	Amendment No. 19 also provides that the new offence of causing death by careless driving can be an alternative verdict where a prosecution for causing death by dangerous driving or for causing death while under the influence of drink or drugs has failed. That will ensure that bad drivers do not escape justice altogether.
	I turn to government Amendment No. 20, which also advances a proposal contained in the consultation paper on bad driving offences. It creates a new offence where the person causes death and is at the same time driving while unlicensed, disqualified or without insurance. Drivers who bring a car onto the road illegally the public at risk. At present, if a disqualified driver causes an incident in which a person is killed, he could be prosecuted only for driving while disqualified, which attracts a low custodial sentence. Unless his driving is careless or dangerous, no more serious charge is available than that. Similarly, where the driver is driving without a licence or without insurance and kills, he can be prosecuted only with the offences of driving without insurance or without a licence, which are punishable only by fines.
	We have listened to the families of victims killed by illegal drivers. They are understandably concerned that an offender can walk away with a fine for killing a person when they should not have been on the road in the first place. If a driver does not have a licence, he presents a risk. Where that risk materialises, the offence goes beyond unlicensed driving and the Government strongly believe that deaths should be recognised. So this offence reflects the fact that the driver should not have been on the road in the first place. It is entirely proper that those who deliberately flout the law in that manner should be held culpable for any fatal consequences that arise from their decision to drive.
	An example of how that offence might be used would be where a child runs in front of a vehicle and is killed by a driver whose driving is of an acceptable standard. Where that driver is disqualified, unlicensed or uninsured, the Government believe that a more severe punishment should be available than at present. It is true that that is not strictly a case of bad driving, in that disqualified, unlicensed or uninsured drivers may be driving at the required standard, but I believe, as did many respondents to the consultation exercise, that the act of taking a vehicle on the road when disqualified or unlicensed shows a disregard for the safety of others that is not dissimilar to that disregard that may be shown by those who drive below the standard expected of a careful and competent driver.
	A two-year maximum penalty for that offence, which is lower than that originally suggested in the consultation exercise, will recognise the fact that the driver has placed other road users at unacceptable risk, and that risk has materialised, but balances that with the fact that the standard of driving need not have been below that of the careful and competent driver.
	Both government Amendments Nos. 19 and 20 provide that any person found guilty of those offences will be disqualified and have his licence endorsed as is consistent with other bad driving offences. As a general rule, where a person is convicted of an offence that is subject to obligatory disqualification, the court must impose a disqualification of not less than 12 months, unless there are special reasons to do otherwise. That is the effect of Section 34(1) of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988. However, Section 34(4) of that Act provides that in relation to manslaughter—or culpable homicide in Scotland—causing death by dangerous driving, and causing death by dangerous driving while under the influence, the minimum period of disqualification shall be two years.
	Amendment No. 19A makes the new offence of causing death by careless driving subject to a minimum disqualification period of two years. The new offence is not as serious as the three offences that attract a minimum disqualification period of two years. Those three offences are subject to a very high custodial sentence—up to 14 years in the case of causing death by dangerous driving or causing death by careless driving while under the influence, and life imprisonment for manslaughter or culpable homicide. The new offence attracts a maximum custodial sentence of five years. For that reason, it should not be included in the small group of very serious offences for which the minimum period of disqualification is two years rather than 12 months.
	If, for special reasons, a court opts not to disqualify an offender, government Amendments Nos. 19 and 20 set out the range of penalty points that may be awarded. It has been set between three and 11, which is consistent with other offences that attract mandatory disqualification; for example, causing death by dangerous driving or causing death while under the influence. Amendments Nos. 19B and 20A would change that range in relation to the new offences proposed here so that the minimum number of penalty points that could be awarded for those offences would be eight.
	I have set out how those offences should fit within the bad driving framework of offences. All road traffic offences subject to obligatory disqualification attract a range of three to 11 penalty points to be applied where, for special reasons, the court opts not to disqualify. The proposed amendment, aside from putting the new offence out of step with all the others, would present a real practical difficulty. Where the person already had points on his licence, imposing eight or more further penalty points may well take the total to 12 or more, thus resulting in disqualification. The three to 11 range is designed to enable courts, for special reasons, to add points to a licence rather than to disqualify. The amendment would substantially reduce that possibility, in that it would be an option only where the individual concerned had three points or fewer on his licence. An example of a situation that might be regarded as a special reason for not disqualifying is where a car was driven carelessly in a medical emergency. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Monson, who takes a very keen interest in those issues, would not want the courts to be limited in their power to deal sympathetically with those kinds of situations, but that would be the effect of his amendment. He will recognise, therefore, why I oppose Amendments Nos. 19A and 20B.
	Neither of the proposed offences includes injury. That issue was considered in the consultation paper on bad driving offences. The Government have decided not to include injury in the scope of the offences. It was discussed at a previous stage and is raised in Amendment No. 63, to which I shall now speak.
	Amendment No. 63 would add injury to the offence under Section 1 of the Road Traffic Act so that it would be an offence to cause death or injury by dangerous driving. That would be punishable by a maximum penalty of 14 years' imprisonment. The question whether injury should be treated in the same way as death in bad driving offences is a longstanding issue on which, I recognise, there are differing views both in this House and in wider society. The case put forward in support of including injury in bad driving offences is that whether death results from a piece of bad driving can be a matter of chance. As all noble Lords are aware, there is an offence of causing grievous injury by dangerous driving in Northern Ireland but there is no such offence in Great Britain. Where injury occurs, that is reflected as appropriate in sentencing. The issue was examined during the review of road traffic offences consultation exercise but was not put forward as a proposal as the Government do not favour making consequences other than death an element of bad driving offences. Instead, we propose that sentencers should be under a statutory duty to take injuries into account when sentencing.
	This proposal received a mixed response. Road safety organisations and some members of the public supported the idea. However, the legal profession did not think that it was necessary as injuries are already relevant to sentence. The responses also made clear that death is considered a special case. Indeed, this is reflected in the current road traffic framework, which provides for much higher sentences where a death occurs and a driver is driving dangerously, has stolen a car or kills and is under the influence of drink or drugs. That will be extended by the proposed new offences in government Amendments Nos. 19 and 20.
	If we agree that, in relation to dangerous driving, causing injury should be treated as similar to causing death, then logically we should agree to extend that principle to other bad driving offences such as causing death while under the influence or aggravated vehicle taking. Those are serious offences with a maximum penalty of 14 years. We think that that penalty is right where death has occurred because a driver has taken a risk, that risk has materialised and a person has lost their life because of it. We think that it is right that the death is recognised both in the charge and in the sentence available but we do not agree that that should be the case where injury is caused. We agree with the responses to the consultation exercise that death is a special case and that injury should be reflected in the sentence rather than in a specific charge.
	The Government propose that it would be better to build on current practice and to work with the Sentencing Guidelines Council in England and Wales and the Sentencing Commission for Scotland to support them in producing guidelines that require sentencers to take appropriate account of those factors in sentencing.
	I hope, therefore, that the House will support government Amendments Nos. 19, 20 and 29. I believe that they set the right balance between the culpability of the offender and ensuring that the courts have the powers to sentence appropriately. For the reasons that I have set out, I hope that noble Lords will not press their amendments. I apologise for speaking at such great length but this is a very important part of the Bill. It is our response both to representations from outside this House and to our discussions in Committee. On that basis, I beg to move.

Lord Monson: My Lords, this is a very large group of amendments. Apart from one very minor point of detail, I have no quarrel with Amendment No. 20, which deals with deliberate offences, committed in the full knowledge that they are illegal. However, Amendment No. 19 is clearly extremely controversial, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, rightly conceded. If that were not the case, its provisions would have been passed into law decades ago. After all, the problems that it purports to address are not getting worse, like anti-social behaviour or gun crime; on the contrary, they are either static or declining slightly. Fatalities per million vehicle miles are well under one-tenth of what they were 40 or 50 years ago. Although one should never be complacent, it is worth noting that we have almost the lowest road fatality rate in the world.
	What has changed is public sentiment. Forty or 50 years ago when a road fatality took place, people would say, "How very sad, how tragic, but accidents will happen". Nowadays, people—at any rate, the younger generation—refuse to accept that accidents will happen. They maintain that almost all accidents are avoidable and that anyone responsible for a fatal one should have the book thrown at them, whether they be a motorist, a hospital doctor, a nurse, a railway signalman, an air traffic controller or anyone else who is deemed to be responsible for a death. Objectively, one can see many philosophical and practical flaws in this attitude. However, subjectively, one cannot help but sympathise enormously with the family and friends of the victim, which is why I have been in favour—certainly, since our very lengthy consideration of the Road Traffic Bill in 1988 in which I took a fairly active part—of some modest change in the law, as I indicated in Committee, with the accent on the word "modest".
	Unfortunately, the change that the Government propose is very far from modest. I wonder how many noble Lords realise that the maximum sentence proposed today for causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving is exactly the same as that stipulated in the 1988 Act, which received Royal Assent 17 years ago last week, for causing death by dangerous or reckless driving. Monetary inflation in this country is thankfully down to below 2.5 per cent per annum, but what one might term "maximum sentence" inflation has been running at about 7 per cent per annum compound. Certainly where death by dangerous driving is concerned the maximum sentence has gone up by almost by three times in something like 16 years.
	The ostensible reason for what is now proposed is to eliminate careless driving and thereby save lives. By and large, it will not achieve this objective, although, obviously, if even a handful of lives are saved that is to be applauded. It will not achieve this because as long as the human race exists human errors will occur. But the largely unspoken reason for the amendment is to give the public and the tabloid press what they have asked for. In this, the Government may be successful—in the short term at any rate.
	However, unless the maximum sentence of five years is reduced, there will be two unintended consequences. If the maximum remains at five years, the public and the tabloid press will understandably expect everyone who is convicted of this new offence to be sent to prison for at least three or four years where careless driving verges on the reckless and for between 12 and 18 months in other cases. There will be outrage in the press if only non-custodial sentences are imposed.
	In consequence, not only irresponsible yobs like boy-racers will go to prison—there will be a few of those, of course—but also considerable numbers of students, young mothers with small children, hard-working heads of families, little old ladies and drivers of HGVs whose vehicles "inconsiderately" spray mud and slush over the windscreens of cars causing the latter to crash and kill someone. We know this because an increase in the prison population is anticipated: one of the reasons that this amendment is so late in reaching your Lordships—it is late to bring it in at Report stage—is that the Treasury was apparently unhappy about having to find the funding for extra prison places.
	The second unintended consequence is that jurors will very soon become reluctant to convict, realising that "there but for the grace of God go I". However, if the maximum sentence is reduced to two years—or three years as I propose in Amendment No. 19C—it will be tacitly understood that prison will be reserved for those whose careless driving verges on the reckless, with almost all others receiving fines, possibly community service—perhaps in an accident and emergency ward—and of course disqualification.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned, in Amendment No. 19A I have proposed raising the minimum discretionary period from one to two years, as with the assistance of Back Benchers of all parties and none I was able to do in 1988, for dangerous driving. I firmly believe that if the family and friends of victims are satisfied that the guilty party is to be kept off the road for a period they will not be so vocal in calling for a prison sentence to be imposed.
	Reverting to imprisonment, I favour a two-year maximum sentence, but I calculated that I might get more support from various quarters of the House if I made it three years. A three-year maximum is not habitual, but there is certainly plenty of precedent for it. I have discovered at least seven offences that were created between 1959 and 1986 inclusive in which a three-year maximum sentence features.
	Amendments Nos. 19B and 20A are essentially probing amendments dealing with the number of penalty points. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, explained these to my satisfaction. I find it hard to believe that the Government would want offences as serious as this to attract potentially a mere three penalty points, but, nonetheless, in view of the time that we have available, I am prepared to not go any further with them
	My Amendment No. 29A is important. I listened very carefully naturally to what the Minister said, but there cannot be a single driver with more than 100,000 miles under his or her belt who has not from time to time found that their normal driving standards have lapsed for one reason or another. This amendment is designed to acknowledge human imperfection. However, again, I am not prepared to go much further on that unless I get support from other parts of the House.
	The noble Lord said that the Government have consulted a number of organisations on what they propose and that the legal profession is not very happy about it. I take it that they have consulted the Bar Council, the Law Society, the Lord Chief Justice and the Magistrates' Association, as well as ACPO and the motoring organisations. No doubt the noble Lord will verify that. If such consultations have taken place in the three weeks since the Government's precise intentions became known, were those organisations entirely in favour? Obviously, some of them are not. Did they disagree in whole or in part? Could we have more detail on what they disagreed with? Was it the maximum sentence, for example?
	Since, unfortunately, this new offence comes to us via not a Bill but a Report stage amendment no explanatory notes are provided, as would be normal. So, first, we are not told of the financial effects of the amendment; secondly, we are not told of its effects on public service manpower; and, thirdly, we are not told of the regulatory impact assessment stemming from the amendment. All of that would normally be in the Explanatory Notes.
	Amendment No. 19C is the really important amendment, which reduces the maximum sentence. I fear that if it is not reduced, things will not go as benignly as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, suggests. Many more people will be sent to prison than the Government anticipate. But convention demands that at this point I move Amendment No. 19A. I beg to move.

Lord Lyell of Markyate: My Lords, I have very grave reservations indeed about this amendment and about making causing death by careless driving an imprisonable offence. But first perhaps I can indicate that in no way am I soft on bad driving. Indeed, I congratulate the Government on their campaign against speed. During their eight years the Government have done a great deal to bring home to us the dangers of excessive speed in driving. I support them in that and it has been brought home to me personally—though fortunately not by too many convictions. None the less, the Government are absolutely right about speed. When I was Attorney-General and Solicitor-General, my noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew and I made it our business to see that causing death by dangerous driving was properly dealt with by the courts through bringing a series of Attorney-General's references before the Court of Appeal. The level of sentences went up markedly during those 10 years. It is quite right that the offence of causing death by dangerous driving should receive a condign penalty.
	However, to create an offence of causing death by careless driving is fundamentally wrong as a matter of justice. The Minister said that nearly all the lawyers who had referred to this—or at least the ones he named—had grave reservations about it, and they are absolutely right. But that is not because we are lawyers. It is because we believe in the importance of justice, as I am sure the Minister does. The difficulty is that I cannot immediately think of any area in our system of justice in which custodial sentences are imposed unless the wrongdoing has been the result of either intent or recklessness.
	We deliberately took the word "recklessness" out of the legislation on bad driving for technical reasons, but as my noble friend Lord Attlee and the noble Lord, Lord Monson, have rightly pointed out, there is at present on the statute book a fundamental distinction between dangerous driving and causing death by dangerous driving and careless driving. In order to be guilty of causing death by dangerous driving—and this bears repetition—Section 2A(1)(a) of the 1988 Act states a person may be guilty of causing death by dangerous driving if:
	"(a) the way he drives falls far below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver, and
	(b) it would be obvious to a competent and careful driver that driving in that way would be dangerous".
	In other words, you are doing something that you know you ought not to be doing. Whereas with careless driving—and I support Amendment No. 29 because it rightly enacts what is indeed the common law—all that is required is that your driving should fall below that of a normal competent and careful driver. But, by definition, no one sets out to drive carelessly. If they set out to do so, they would be doing something deliberate, whereas it is the very essence of carelessness that it arrives, unfortunately, by accident.
	I fully understand the position of the parents and families of victims—indeed, many in this House will be in that position—but when you are dealing with justice, it is the culpability that must govern and not the consequence, which tragically can be fatal. What is proposed in the amendment would deny the opportunity for the court adequately to indicate the culpability. It is an absolute essential of British justice that the prosecution must prove the case and it must state what case it is seeking to prove. If you bring a case of causing death by dangerous driving, you know exactly what the ingredients are. If there is then an alternative verdict of causing death by careless driving—which relates simply to falling below the normal standards of a competent driver—you do not know how much has been proved. As the Minister said, I suppose you might surmise that it is on the cusp of dangerous driving, but what is the defendant to do? Somehow, in a practical way, he has to try to prove his innocence on the lower part of the charge. Yes, he can be sent to prison for up to 14 years, but that is not very likely unless there are serious aggravating circumstances—in which case he would do well to plead guilty as quickly as possible. The amendment seeks to introduce a five-year prison sentence—and the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, seeks a three-year prison sentence—but for the vast majority of citizens any prison sentence at all is a very frightening and worrying consequence. We know that we do not set out to do something criminal—if we do, we get what we deserve—but under the amendment a prison sentence can be imposed through pure accident, pure carelessness, and, sadly, we can all be guilty of that. What issue will be dealt with in a causing death by dangerous driving offence when there is going to be an alternative remedy? Or, indeed, what issue will be dealt with if you bring only a case of causing death by careless driving, which carries a sentence of up to five years?
	Let me give the example—and I think that this is one of the matters which worries families—of where you are driving down the kind of road which you find all round London near here, with parked cars down either side. We are now aware—partly as a result of the Government's wise governance in this area—that 30 miles an hour is probably too fast a speed at which to go down that kind of road. But then, by mishap, someone—an elderly person, a young child or just an ordinary person—steps out from between the cars and, because you are going just a little too fast, there is a fatal accident and you have caused death by careless driving. But that brings in the question of causation.
	According to the law books, "causation" is fairly irrelevant as far as causing death by dangerous driving is concerned—the course of conduct is there and the driving falls far below the required standard—and it is only in the rarest of cases that causation could even be argued by the defence. But in careless driving cases there is often a multitude of causes for the death and the court will have to decide that issue. But the defendant may not know clearly what is being alleged against him. Will it be down to the prosecutor to indicate the nuances and what he seeks to prove? We expect it to be down to the proper ingredients of the offence. There has to be clarity and certainty.
	With great respect to the Government and to the consultation processes, I have serious worries about being told what the public believe. The public may be right, but it is very difficult for them to take into account all these matters in relation to consultation. In my view the amendment is a grave error. I am sorry it has been brought forward at Report because it would have genuinely benefited from being teased out in the kind of debate that we would have had at a full Committee stage. I very much hope that the Government will think again about these proposals and not press them.

Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I was going to speak in favour of the amendments when my noble friend introduced them.. Having heard comments from other noble Lords, I am afraid that I have to congratulate my noble friend even more. I believe that what he is doing is absolutely right.
	We have heard so many stories about momentary errors of judgment that people have to live with for ever. We have heard about poor mothers taking their children to school and youngsters on benefits. We are forgetting the victims, whose relations will suffer and remember this for ever.
	It is possible to drive carefully within the law by concentrating and keeping to the speed limit, and we have a duty of care to do that. I get the impression that a number of noble Lords feel, "There but for the grace of God go I". If this proposal gets people to drive more carefully—and it is not noble Lords who are the main cause of the problem, as we all know—it is a very good thing.
	One noble Lord mentioned the Health and Safety Executive and what would happen in a factory. None of us works in factories, so we would not know. The Health and Safety Executive does a great deal of good in factories; it has also done a great deal of good on the railways. It may have done too much good and spent too much money, but, in general, it has done a great deal of good. I have suggested for a number of years that it should be involved in road safety. If it was, and it applied the same rules to roads as it did to factories, we would all be driving at 20 miles an hour, which would save an awful lot of lives.
	I do not know whether the details of the amendments are right, but the sentiments are right. We must recognise that there is a demand for this, because we are still killing 3,500 people a year and seriously injuring 10 times that number. The amendments are a major contribution to reducing that number, and I shall certainly support them.

Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, I shall refer specifically to the question of injuries. The Minister said that it was about injuries that the consultation had taken place with various legal officers, the Bar Council and others, not about death by dangerous driving.
	Amendment No. 63 is a probing amendment; we wanted to know where injuries stood in the scale of things. I can accept that there is a very wide variation in degree of injury between people who suffer a cut or a graze and, at the other extreme, somebody who ends up in a vegetative state. I know that the Minister will go away and think about what has been said tonight. I ask him to reconsider whether there is a degree of life-changing injury—if a person ends up minus a limb or in a wheelchair and is permanently injured, for example—that will lead to their case being considered special? I am not talking about trivial injuries.
	On the rest of the amendments, it must now be apparent to the Minister that there is great unease about the custodial element of the punishments proposed for careless driving. I do not consider tiredness, where somebody is dropping asleep, as being careless driving. The person should take a rest. We are told to do that often enough. But where the offence is genuinely a momentary lapse, further consideration should certainly be given to the range of community sentences to which the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, referred, because prisons are overcrowded and sending somebody to prison brings in its train all kinds of other problems such as who is to support the prisoner's family and who is to look after his children. It is a devastating situation with which to be confronted. There may be people who go to prison habitually, but the vast majority of us regard it as something with which we would certainly not wish to get involved.
	So when the Minister sums up, will he answer these questions? I shall not press Amendment No. 63. It is simply a probing amendment to discover whether there is any degree of injury which the Minister considers should be included in those things which we have discussed.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, we could have predicted an interesting debate on this group of amendments and that has certainly been the case. I shall limit my reply if only because my opening contribution was of an inordinate length and it attempted to cover as many of the arguments that I could anticipate would be put forward both against the Government's amendments and in favour of those that were tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, to which other noble Lords have spoken. The House will recognise that this is a serious debate and that while I want to be clear in my answers, I do not want to rehearse all the issues with which I tried to deal in my opening contribution.
	I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, for his comment on the extent of the Government's determination to make our roads safer by making people more aware of appropriate speed limits. I am grateful for his support for the Government in this activity. He will recognise that I quite frankly said in my opening statement that the legal profession largely disagreed with us. He, in his customarily courteous but forceful way, articulated exactly those arguments. I can say only that we have considered them very carefully. Copies of the consultation exercise to which I referred have been placed in Library of the House and can be examined there, but I made no bones about the fact that anxieties were expressed in many quarters of the law about these proposals during the consultation exercise. But the Government intend to proceed, because, during that exercise, we received very substantial support. This is a road safety Bill and our job is to promote road safety by way of it. The road safety organisations, among others, were very forceful in their support for what we intended to do.
	I might add—I shudder to do so in the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, because it will not be a satisfactory answer to him—that we included this concept in our manifesto only four to five months ago. I have heard it expressed on all sides that we should not be so crudely populist, but there are certain areas of sentencing policy where we do not automatically take the public's view and translate that into law. I of course recognise the age-long debates about the death penalty. We said in our manifesto that we would introduce much tougher penalties for those who cause death by careless driving or who kill while driving without a licence or while disqualified. We are fulfilling that commitment. We have the right to say that we have received substantial public support for this amendment.
	So I concede that I will not persuade the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, with this argument because he articulated an entirely different one about the anxieties of lawyers. We have considered their representations in full and we intend to go ahead because we think that the one argument triumphs over the other.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I was going to seek to make a concession, and I cannot think of a more appropriate way of doing so than in response to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, at this juncture. I am going to press the amendment today, and noble Lords will recognise from the arguments that I presented in the opening speech why we are so convinced of the rightness of our cause, despite the fact that we recognise reservations in significant quarters. But I am prepared, and hope that the House will recognise, that we want to press ahead with the government amendment today, but we shall certainly discuss sentencing before Third Reading, and we shall meet on that point. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, made that point with considerable force, as did other contributors to the debate; I believe that that was also the burden of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit—although I shall not bring any Defence Ministers to that discussion, for the simple reason that they are far too busy and not for any other consideration. We shall meet on that basis; but the noble Lord will recognise that his challenge was a full frontal and properly articulated one to the principle on which I am working with regard to the amendments. I am merely saying that we have right on our side and support from the nation in what we are doing, which will aid road safety. But we will discuss the issue before Third Reading; we shall leave further discussion until then.
	On a number of other issues that were raised, there is inevitably a tendency for people to become anecdotal. We should avoid that—and we must avoid the "hard luck story". After all, the hard luck story would inhibit us from passing laws at all on some aspects of road safety. I imagine that there is not a single the noble Lord who has not at some time shuddered behind the wheel of a car, wondering whether they are breaking the law, whether they are fully in control or whether they are where they should be doing what they ought to be doing at that precise moment. All drivers must experience that situation, but we cannot make law on that basis; we must make law to safeguard the safety of our roads for the people who use them. Although the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, made a very strong case, people who are driving more quickly than they should along a row of parked cars and who hit someone who steps out may be guilty of a very serious driving misdemeanour indeed.
	On the more general issue, when we talk about sentencing, we are talking about enabling and the range that may be applied. We are not saying that in each and every case the maximum sentence will be applied; that would be absolutely absurd. We are saying that the problem at present is that such penalties are not open at all to those who have been found guilty of careless driving—and that is the Government's case. But of course there will be gradations, and of course there will be very limited numbers of people who will fall foul of the offence to the extent that they receive an extensive custodial sentence.
	The noble Lord, Lord Monson, asked directly about custodial sentences and their impact. We estimate that we would need an additional 150 prison places a year as a consequence of the numbers who might be caught by these offences. That is not a marginal number. I cannot recall which noble Lord said that the Treasury might have an interest in this matter; in my experience, the Treasury has an interest in every matter with regard to government, so it will have an interest in this matter. But we are talking about 150 prison places a year—we are not talking about measures that would produce a vast blitz on our fellow citizens or put a very large number of them in prison.
	What is the purpose of legislation such as this, apart from punishing the guilty? It is to deter those who might be dangerous or careless. The whole purpose of such legislation is to ensure that we take greater care and that we avoid dangerous driving. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, was kind enough to say, the toughening of our attitude on speeding does condition behaviour; he recognised that as an effect. That is the purpose of the government amendments, and that is why they are included in the Road Safety Bill.
	Some noble Lords said that the Government were acting fearfully late on this matter. We are not late; we discussed the issues and were under pressure in Committee to do something on this matter. We were asked, "Why haven't you got your act together?"—and I gave undertakings that we would table amendments at this stage. Of course, in a perfect world, we would have had everything together before the Bill had even started its passage; but this measure will not be the first that noble Lords have known of in this House on which serious issues have to developed during the passage of the Bill. We had a fruitful and useful discussion in Committee, and I believe that I won one or two plaudits, which is rare indeed from noble Lords, for saying that I would consider the matter further. Today is a result of that further consideration—but the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, is going to throw me sideways yet again.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, it is far too difficult a calculation for me to have made, I must say. The noble Lord will not expect me to produce the formula here and now, but I shall write to him about the issue and ensure that other noble Lords know about it.
	I recognise the seriousness of the debate. The points that have been made are substantial ones of principle, and I can only adumbrate the argument that we have considered them very carefully but that we have other principles that triumph over those and which have to take precedence, given our commitments and our need to act in the interest of road safety. I shall certainly fulfil the undertaking that we will consider the issue and discuss it with noble Lords before Third Reading. On that basis, I hope that noble Lords will support the government amendment.

Lord Monson: My Lords, it is up to me to wind up on Amendment No. 19A. My noble friend Lord Tenby spoke of the fleeting satisfaction of victims' families if imprisonment is imposed on those responsible for the victims' death. I believe that he was spot on with the use of the word "fleeting". I urge the Government to reflect on the point that I made about Amendment No. 19A. If the victims' families are aware that those responsible for the victims' death are suffering the extreme inconvenience of being kept off the road for at least two years, they will be less zealous—as my noble friend Lord Northbourne also suggesting—in demanding imprisonment. It must surely be better to disqualify careless but otherwise law-abiding drivers rather than add to our enormous prison population.
	So I urge the Government to reflect on what I have said before the next stage. Of course, I shall not press the amendment now. I am interested that the Government estimated an increase in the prison population of a mere 150. It has been estimated that 90 per cent of road accidents are caused by human error and only 10 per cent by such things as bad road conditions, weather conditions and so on. That 90 per cent gives us a figure of more than 3,000 deaths caused by careless people. However, the Government have made a most constructive and generous offer to look at the sentencing policy again before Third Reading. In that case, I shall not move any of my other amendments, and I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 19B and 19C, as amendments to Amendment No. 19, not moved.]
	On Question, Amendment No. 19 agreed to.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I want to restate the aim of this amendment, which was moved in Committee. It is designed to introduce the concept of variable speed limits in conjunction with increasing the maximum motorway speed limit to 80 miles per hour. In combination, these two elements establish a simple and straightforward system of speed limits that is both safe and practical.
	The efficacy of variable speed limits has already been demonstrated on the M25 orbital motorway in Surrey, where road safety is undoubtedly enhanced by the adjustment of the speed limit in accordance with circumstances such as traffic flow and adverse weather. This point was broadly accepted in Committee by many of your Lordships and the Minister himself.
	It was the second part of this amendment, the proposed increase of the motorway speed limit to 80 miles per hour, that prompted a much greater debate in Committee. During that debate many noble Lords, and indeed the Minister, referred to studies conducted in the United States of the road safety impact of the repeal of the federal speed limit law in the US in 1995. I must remind noble Lords that these studies did not produce the unanimous conclusion that speed increase is detrimental to road safety, which was implicit in their citation in Committee. In fact, many of the studies found quite the opposite.
	The Cato Institute 1999 policy analysis, Speed Doesn't Kill: The Repeal of the 55mph Speed Limit—that is, in the United States—states that, despite the fact that 33 US states had raised their speed limits since 1995,
	"almost all measures of highway safety show improvement, not more deaths and injuries . . . Moreover, the average fatality rate even fell in the states that raised their speed limits".
	This conclusion is also supported by a recent 2005 study by another American academic, Robert O Yowell, who concluded in his study, The Evolution and Devolution of Speed Limit Law and the Effect on Fatality Rates, that:
	"the assertion that speed kills, and more speed kills more, is . . . unfounded".
	Furthermore, I must also remind noble Lords that this new clause diverges significantly from the American experience, since raising the speed limit to 80 miles per hour in this instance is reliant upon the use of a variable speed limit motorway warning-sign system, where speed is adjusted in accordance with circumstances.
	Increasing the motorway speed limit is a proposal that already has widespread public and expert support. A recent survey conducted in May 2005 by the company Motor Insurance found that 82 per cent of motorists supported an increase in that limit. It is not surprising that the public reject the current motorway speed limit so emphatically when one considers that it is widely considered arbitrary and anachronistic. In short, it has lost its relevance to modern-day motorists, the cars they drive and the roads they drive on.
	Since the limit was set in 1964, both cars and motorways have advanced dramatically. Due to advances in technology, people are now able to drive cars safely at higher speeds. I beg to move.

Lord Hanningfield: My Lords, we on these Benches very much support this amendment. I need add nothing to what the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said. It seems an anomaly that the relevant measure does not apply where the speed limit is 30 miles an hour in urban areas. We support the amendment.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I am grateful to both the noble Lords, Lord Skelmersdale and Lord Oakeshott, for their comments. Although they made some criticisms of the Government's handling of this measure, I am grateful for their general support for the regulations.
	I start by dealing with the issue of errors and, again, I apologise to the House. It is most unfortunate. Noble Lords will know that, when I was chair of the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee, I took a particular interest in the proper production of statutory instruments and the ability of this House properly to scrutinise them. I do not depart from that, and it is a matter of great disappointment to me that I have to come before your Lordships' House to apologise for an error that has occurred. I can assure noble Lords that I will do everything in my power to ensure that this does not happen again and we will try to put it right as soon as possible.
	I turn to the specific comment of the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, and the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee about the pace and timing of the various statutory instruments that have to be brought forward. Much of that reflects the need to get this new FAS system up and running as quickly as possible. Inevitably some problems have arisen in the timing of the regulations and some of the changes that have had to be made because of the need for speed. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, I am advised that the FAS unit intends to make payments by the end of the year. I take that to be the calendar year and will stand by that. If I can give the noble Lord any more details, I will write to him, but clearly it is very important to get payments out as soon as possible.
	We debated the issue of running costs in July. The figure is the same as I gave then—that is, £16 million—and at present there is no change to that estimate. Obviously, in the light of experience, we will have to look at the matter again but that is the figure that I have. We shall be employing about 60 people in the York office of the FAS. IT has had to be produced and I want the administration of the scheme to be as efficient as possible. I am sure that we are working towards that. None the less, the scheme will cost money and we must accept that.
	I do not know whether I should respond to the general points raised by the noble Lords, Lord Oakeshott and Lord Skelmersdale. I think that the matter has been debated and, in the end, Parliament has reached the decision that this is the route down which we should go. Inevitably, hard decisions have had to be made in setting up the assistance scheme—I do not think that anyone would disagree with that. Any government in our position would have to make similar decisions, although there may be disagreement about the approach taken. No one can be in any doubt whatever about the personal consequences for individual pension scheme members when their pension schemes go down. We discussed that in a debate last week and one can only have extraordinary sympathy for anyone affected in that way.
	The £400 million is the amount of money that we have set aside. I believe I said in July that that will be reviewed in the next spending round cycle, and we will then know more about the number of schemes that the FAS has accepted and the number of scheme members involved. At the moment, we envisage that up to 15,000 members who are within three years of the scheme's normal retirement age will benefit from the FAS topping up their pensions. I say to the noble Lord that it is early days. The period during which applications have to be made ends on 20 February and we will know much more after that date. When that date is reached and we have more up-to-date estimates, I shall of course be very happy to write to both noble Lords.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, in my view these draft regulations are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. They will ensure that private members clubs with 25 or more members are under essentially the same duties of reasonable adjustment which are imposed under Part 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act on providers of goods, services and facilities to the general public. That is what we proposed in our consultation document published during the passage of the Disability Discrimination Bill, on which we received a small but positive response in agreement. Many private clubs which provide services to the public, such as rooms for hire, will of course already be well acquainted with these duties. I stress that private clubs will only be asked to do what is reasonable in all the circumstances. That means that disability discrimination legislation will provide a familiar and consistent regime of law for disabled people, whether in relation to providers of goods, services and facilities to the general public or private members clubs providing benefits, facilities and services to their members, associates and guests.
	The duties are anticipatory, so private clubs must consider the likely needs of any actual or future disabled members, associates and guests in advance of a person facing difficulties, and make arrangements to meet them where this is reasonable and in all the circumstances. Clubs must be prepared to make changes to their policies, practices, procedures and physical features of the premises they occupy. They must also be prepared to provide auxiliary aids or services to help disabled people access their benefits, facilities or services.
	In all these cases, they must do these things where not to do so would make it unreasonably difficult or impossible for a disabled person who is a member, associate or guest to make use of the benefits, services or facilities provided by the club for its non-disabled members, associates or guests—the threshold of "unreasonably difficult" or "impossible to use" being the same as that which currently applies to service providers under Part 3 of the DDA. The duties also extend to prospective members and guests within the scope of the non-discrimination duties provided for in the Act. Any breach of the duties is enforceable only by a disabled person who is adversely affected. Clubs also have broadly the same limited range of justifications for not making reasonable adjustments, as do providers of goods and services to the general public.
	The duty to make reasonable adjustments is intended to apply from 4 December 2006. The Disability Rights Commission is in the process of producing a revised code of practice on Part 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act, which will include practical advice and guidance to clubs on how to apply these duties. The consultation period on the code has just ended, and the commission will shortly be submitting a revised code to us for approval and for laying before Parliament.
	However, in extending these principles to private members clubs, we have had to bear in mind the special relationship that such clubs have with their members, associates and guests. There are, therefore, some differences of detail to deal with the particular circumstances of clubs. For example, where a private club—perhaps one which comprises a local interest group—meets in a private house belonging to one of the club's members or associates, additional considerations apply to ensure that the member or associate concerned would be under no obligation to agree to making changes to his or her home.
	The regulations also set out certain circumstances where there are exceptions to the duty not to treat a disabled person less favourably than a non-disabled person for a reason which relates to the disabled person's disability. These circumstances are similar to those which apply in relation to providers of good, services and facilities to the general public. It is intended that these provisions will apply from 5 December 2005.
	We have consulted on the policy behind these regulations. We have framed them to provide a consistent legislative framework across providers of goods, facilities and services, and we have taken account of the special relationship that clubs have with their members. I think that we have reached a fair balance between the rights of disabled people to participate fully in all society has to offer, and the rights of people to associate in private. I commend these draft regulations to the House.
	Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 19 October be approved [6th Report from the Joint Committee and 13th Report from the Merits Committee].—(Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.)

Lord Monson: My Lords, I strongly support this extremely sensible amendment. Where a vehicle is stationary and the engine is switched off, that vehicle is clearly not being driven, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, pointed out. As was said by a number of noble Lords in Committee, an individual who has been able to let his family or his firm know that he is stuck in a 10-mile traffic jam is going to be a much safer driver when he finally emerges from it than a driver who has not been able to let anybody know and who drives fast to make up speed in case his family believes that something untoward has happened to him. A cynic might point out that the police are in practice extremely unlikely to be able to identify and charge anybody who is stuck in a 10-mile traffic jam, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said. They would not be able to get through for a start. But that is not the point. We must look at the principle of the matter. The principle of the amendment is absolutely right.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I have been assailed on all sides. But I suppose that one could ask, whoever thought that the arrival of the mobile phone in a car would be an aid to road safety? Everything that I have heard about mobile phones has been about how they distract from driving, and yet today we have heard the mobile phone defended on all sides as almost an essential aid to keeping the roads safe—as if the roads were a good deal less safe before people could report what was happening on the road and say that they would be home late for tea.
	I accept what the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, said about reporting an accident ahead. However, if a phone was demonstrably used because of an emergency on the road, I think that there would be full understanding by the police and—if it ever went beyond the police—the court of the purpose of the call. I cannot imagine that a prosecution would be sustained.
	However, all the other representations from noble Lords have been about personal convenience. Now this is to suppose that drivers know that there is a 10-mile jam in front of them and know that they are going to safely ensconced there for 45 minutes, and that is why they use their phone. What about the person who is in a jam and is just over the top of a bridge that unsights the traffic behind but is busy on the telephone and does not get away as quickly as he should and then is hit by a vehicle from behind, being stationary when he should not be? In such circumstances, do you think the driver could erect a defence and say, "Well of course I was stationary. I was concentrating on my mobile phone"? Would that be a perfectly reasonable defence? No, it would not.
	We must recognise that if we are focusing on driver alertness and attention, the issue of the mobile phone must be a distraction. I heard what the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, said—that I will drive everyone from using the handheld mobile phone to using the hands-free mobile phone. I shall not be doing that. As the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, well knows, as does every other driver in the country, we do not believe that attention to hands-free phones while driving is a good idea either. Although there may be a common assumption that they are wonderfully safe because both hands are on the steering wheel, the trouble is that the hands are engaged but the mind is not. That is why we have reservations about the hands-free telephone. I am not involved in a contradiction when I suggest that because we have enormous reservations about using handheld phones that we are somehow driving people to using hands-free phones. We made it clear in our guidance that we do not believe that hands-free phones should be used either.
	That is not to say that we did not have a very interesting debate, although the terms of the debate have changed a little, with an amendment that is even better drafted than the amendment we debated previously. We had an interesting debate last time as well, and I have thought about the issues, because I recognise that noble Lords would not have contributed to the debate if there were not a point here—namely, that people can see circumstances in which a phone might be of assistance.
	Let me mention the obvious point: we do not have a definition of "driving" in our road traffic law, as I explained in Committee. We have never had one, and the law has worked—largely because it is difficult to know how one establishes a definition of driving a car. However, we know that there are technical points, such as the ones identified by the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie—namely, "Am I free to use a mobile phone, because my engine automatically switches off because I am driving a certain kind of vehicle?". To allow that would be to drive a coach and horses through these concepts.
	I have sympathy with noble Lords' arguments. I do not like standing here and looking as if I am somehow a technological throwback because I do not enjoy the use of mobile phones. We all use mobile phones, and to good effect. Some of us use them to bad effect as well, when they ring in places they ought not to ring; my visit to the theatre the other evening was disturbed by a mobile phone. I must say that puts one against them for a little while. We all benefit from mobile phones, but mobile phones and driving do not mix. Despite all the representations made in Committee, we did not believe that a case had been made out for a change with regard to mobile phones and driving. The fact that a car is stationary need not mean that full attention does not have to be paid.
	Of course, there was an allusion to another kind of instance—to people getting out of cars in 10-mile jams on motorways. Where on earth would the law be if we had an exception that said that if, in the driver's judgment, he was going to be there for a period of time, he could take a stroll on the motorway because it is obviously perfectly safe if he is in a jam? Of course he is perfectly safe—except that some of our fellow citizens have a very odd definition of a 10-mile jam or wandering around the motorway. The same thing applies to the issue of mobile phones.
	We have heard a very well articulated argument on an amendment that I am afraid I cannot accept.

Lord Hanningfield: My Lords, we had a very useful debate in Committee about the importance of basic first aid skills in saving lives on our roads. I have tabled Amendments Nos. 34 and 36 as I undertook to return to this significant issue at Report stage. I shall not rehearse in detail the many benefits of first aid skills for drivers as we heard them in previous sittings. However, I think it is necessary to restate the potential of enhancing first aid knowledge.
	Noble Lords will know that we still have an average of eight deaths each day on UK roads. Some of those deaths are inevitable after an accident has occurred due to the massive injuries sustained. However, substantial research has shown that in the cases where death was not inevitable, up to 85 per cent of the casualties had an airway obstruction. With a blocked airway, it can take less than four minutes to die. In those cases, even if an ambulance arrives within the target time of eight minutes, it is those at the scene who can save a life.
	In Committee, we were very glad to hear from the Minister that he was working with the British Red Cross—many of us have also been involved in discussions with the Red Cross—and St John Ambulance on practical solutions to increase these basic skills in new drivers. I take the Government's point about the complexities of requiring all new drivers to take a practical first aid course in order to pass a driving test. However, other European countries, such as Slovakia, Estonia and Latvia, do require such training.
	I was also pleased to hear in Committee that the Government think that there is a way forward in amending the theory section of the driving test. My understanding is that both parts of the theory test can be amended to enhance new drivers' first aid knowledge. The Minister referred to the question and answer section of the theory test and to the fact that there are currently 22 first aid questions out of 1,200 in total. I should very much like the Government to commit to raising that number so that each new driver is certain to be asked questions about first aid. I should like the Minister to comment on that today.
	In addition, I understand that the interactive part of the theory test—the hazard perception test—could include one scene detailing a first aid scenario.
	That would enable a learner driver to understand the basis of responding to a road accident: ensuring that the scene is safe; checking consciousness, breathing and circulation; and calling for help.
	The new focus on the theory test would remedy previous objections on the grounds of bureaucracy and cost. It would not require a separate course on first aid, and would be integrated into the current system. Nor would improving the theory test require retesting every few years; it would simply give new drivers vital life skills at a time when they need them most. As your Lordships have heard several times, drivers between 17 and 20 are six times more likely to be involved in a collision that causes injury than a driver over 40.
	These modest steps would not place any obligation on drivers. No driver would be required to act at the scene of an accident. What a dreadful tragedy it would be, however, if there were a willing bystander who could have unblocked an airway or prevented blood loss, but was unable to safe a life through a lack of those very simple skills.
	I hope that the Minister can respond to these amendments and outline the Government's intentions on improving the first aid content of the theory element of the driving test. I beg to move.

Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, briefly, I support what the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, said. I remember quite clearly what the Minister said on Committee: he was keen to avoid extra bureaucracy and mentioned the large cost of extra testing. It does not appear to me, from the researches that the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, has outlined, that it would be very difficult to incorporate some simple first aid questions within the theory part of the test, and include some simulator-type element where somebody could experience what it is like.
	The messages to get over appear to be very simple. We are not expecting people to become paramedics. We expect them to think about a few simple things. It would be in the interests of all people who use the roads if the Minister could accede to this amendment.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, particularly the mover of the amendment. Having discussed these issues at some length last time, I see the attraction of a possible pilot scheme. I want to attest to the House that I shall be negative about it in my final conclusion. But I want to make clear that we are concerned about newly-qualified drivers, which is why we have, in parts of our legislation, stiffened up the penalties for newly qualified drivers who offend. There is no doubt that there are anxieties.
	In any system the most newly qualified will be more vulnerable to getting things wrong because experience is a great teacher. We would all attest to that—it makes us the kind of perfect persons that we are. When discussing legislation of this kind, we all know the benefits of many years learning the skills of driving and so forth. By definition, newly qualified drivers, through their lack of experience, are more prone to accidents. Certainly, we need to address this as a particular issue.
	The problem is that we do not think that a pilot scheme will tell us a great deal that we do not know already. We know already, for instance, that the restricted scheme for drivers in Northern Ireland with regard to the restricted plates seems to make very little difference to road accident statistics. We do not regard the Northern Ireland experience, which is by far the closest to home for obvious reasons, as helping us in any way. On the more technical points, I will write to the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie. I need to talk to lawyers about that factor, so I cannot answer him immediately.
	In 2004 we carried out a full consultation on this issue because we were very conscious of the public anxiety surrounding it. Our own statistics indicated clearly the difficulties associated with newly qualified drivers. But we concluded at the end of the consultation that we would not gain from imposing more extensive restrictions on newly qualified drivers. Our task was to ensure that they are better qualified by improving the driving test so that they would have to meet more rigorous standards. I should say that that is also the answer to the point about the restrictions that are imposed abroad. I take the point about what is done in certain American states, in Australia and various other places. However, first, many of those areas allow people to drive from a much younger age than in this country. Secondly, their tests do not approach ours in terms of rigour. So it is not surprising that additional restrictions are placed on new drivers because people are being put on to the road who we would not regard as qualified to drive. Our emphasis is on the quality of our driving test, both the theory and the practical elements of it.
	We have carried out some statistical research on newly qualified drivers. The rate at which such drivers break the law compares reasonably well with the rest of the population. Under 4.4 per cent of newly qualified male drivers received fixed penalty notices or summonses for motoring offences, while the figure for females was just below 1.6 per cent. We should disabuse ourselves of the notion that every 17 year-old who gets into a car is a madcap driver hell bent on proving his machismo qualities and thus causing accidents. However, accidents caused by young drivers are dramatic and reported widely in the press, not least because they shock us so. Nothing is more chilling. I recall only too well an accident in my former constituency involving four youngsters aged 17 and below, including the driver, who was only 17. The car hit a moorland wall and all four were killed. The sense of shock in the community reverberated for months afterwards because it was such a colossal waste of life. We are all conscious of the cases when things do go wrong, but the statistics do not bear out any notion that we have an outbreak of lawless brigandry when learner drivers qualify.
	I have already mentioned that we bite more heavily on newly qualified drivers who get it wrong. If they make a mistake within two years of passing the driving test and accrue six or more penalty points, they can be disqualified. That is half the points that may be accrued by more mature drivers.
	I am not complacent about this issue and I welcome these debates. They force us to consider carefully the basis of the consultation we carried out some 18 months ago and the conclusions we drew from it. Indeed, a great deal of detailed research on this issue is now in progress. We accept that learners and newly qualified drivers need to gain experience and we know that a minority of them deserve to lose their licences because they have not conducted themselves well enough immediately after qualification, and lose their licences they do.
	In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, we do not think that the objectives of this cause would be advanced by a pilot study. I hope that she will accept my response and feel able to withdraw her amendment.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, that response sounds delightfully plausible. The Minister has quoted some statistics, but whenever I have raised this subject in the past, he has said: "That's the trouble. There are no statistics". That is why I propose the pilot. Unless we collect some actual, real statistics, we do not know what we are talking about.
	The Chief Constable of Northern Ireland certainly has always supported this proposal. There is probably a new man in the post now but I am sure he would equally support it.
	The Minister has said to me in the past that the Australian figures are worse than here. That may be so, but how do we know they would not be worse still without the use of these driving plates? This is the whole point. We are proposing a controlled experiment whereby an identified group driving on this basis is compared with a group that had, for example, gone through in the previous three months. You would have a controlled experiment. The Minister said, "We do not think all these young people are breaking the law". I am not suggesting they are, but the Red Cross must have obtained these facts and figures from somewhere. As I said, my brief refers to "many times" but my noble friend Lord Hanningfield said that 17 to 20 year-olds are six times more likely to be involved in an accident. Someone is producing these figures from somewhere.
	I am going to hound the Minister between now and the next stage of the Bill because I do not think it should be up to me to bring this matter forward. I have been fortunate to have someone very clever to help me work out the wording of the amendment. But, in the past, if I have had a good idea in an amendment, the Government of whatever colour have taken it away, perhaps altered a capital letter or whatever, and brought it back as a government amendment. It always has to come back as a government amendment and I would be very happy to have it as a government amendment. That is what I shall be talking to the Minister about between now and the next stage of the Bill.
	The amendment does not demand that the Minister should introduce the scheme but it enables him to do so. The power to order a pilot scheme would be on the face of the Bill and would enable the Minister to introduce it at whatever time he decided that that should be done. It is an indisputably good system. It is late at night and I do not have other noble Lords here, but I will be coming back to the issue at Third Reading unless I can persuade the Minister to bring something forward himself. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.